American Consequences - August 2019

Mobile payments are no longer just a futuristic idea for American citizens, they’re actually here... In 2018, 55 million people in the U.S. used mobile payments. By the end of this year, that number will rise to nearly 62 million... still less than 20% of the population. I believe we’ll see continued growth, once the average American becomes educated on this simple fact: Mobile payments are safer and more secure than paying with credit cards or cash. This is where Americans’ perceptions are furthest from reality. People assume mobile payments aren’t secure. But that simply isn’t the case... You see, one thing makes mobile-payment options among the safest ways to handle a transaction. It’s called “tokenization.” It sounds technical. But all you need to know is that it means your personal payment information never gets used. Through the tokenization process, a unique number is generated that won’t be used again. This digital representation – or “token” – takes the place of your actual card information. Swiping a credit or debit card still makes your name, card number, and expiration date vulnerable throughout the payment process. Hackers can grab your data from store databases. We’ve seen this play out time and time again over the past several years. Using a mobile-payment app is far superior to swiping a card in terms of security. And that’s

Mobile payments are safer and more secure than paying with credit cards or cash.

why, as folks wake up to this fact, I expect growth to continue rapidly in the years to come. So how do we profit from this major trend? Well, we’re still in the early stages of this revolution. And the winners aren’t completely clear at this point. But that’s OK... If you don’t want to gamble on which company will dominate the market over the next three to five years, you can “play the field” with the ETFMG Prime Mobile Payments Fund (IPAY). IPAY is an exchange-traded fund that you can buy like any stock... And it holds a broad basket of companies that focus on mobile payments. For example, digital-payment giants PayPal and Global Payments are both in IPAY’s top 10 holdings. So are credit-card giants Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. And mobile-payments player Square is a key part of this fund, too. These are companies in the thick of this revolution... And their long-term success depends on getting it right. You don’t need to pick the winners to make money as mobile payments become more popular in America. You can play the field. If you’re looking to take advantage of this explosive opportunity in the years ahead, IPAY is the simplest way to do it.

American Consequences

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